Whitey Grey nodded solemnly. “You gots a good memory, boy. I likes that in a pardner. Yeah, that’s about the size of it. So, yeah, we left, rode into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the sun sinkin’ lower now in the horizon, and that’s what awaited us in that mean ol’ cañon of treachery and barbarity. Death.”
Chapter Three
The white-skinned man picked up his tale.
Stein’s Peak be the largest point in the Peloncillos, but Doubtful Cañon’s the most dangerous spot in the mountains, maybe the most dangersome in this whole territory. Like I done tol’ you, our mules was pret’ much played out, even with the hatfuls of water Sam Golden had given ’em back at the station. They was game, though, and Sam Golden knowed he had to get us through that cañon in a hurry.
Talk about a bone-jarrin’ ride, we inside that Concord was bouncin’ ever’ which way. I recollect hearin’ some fool joke that the best way to make a good jam was to put a bunch of womenfolks in one of Mr. Butterfield’s stagecoaches for the ride ’cross New Mexico.
“Hiya! Hiya! Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zechariah, get movin’ you blasted mules!” Sam Golden yelled from atop, and kept lashin’ out with that blacksnake of his’n. Pop! Pop, it’d go. Sounded just like a gunshot ever’ time.
Fact is, that’s what I thought it was at first. Pop! Figgered that was Sam Golden’s whip again. Only it wasn’t. And then I knowed.
“Apaches!” The Mex yelled out something in Mex, and cut loose with both barrels of the shotgun.
Well, that gunfire sounded like there was a whole army of Cherry Cows, but Apaches always raided with small parties. ’Course, one Apache is oftentimes enough to gets the job done.
So I crouched down by one door, and Bruce, he took the other, us bouncin’ up and down and ’cross, tryin’ to find somethin’ to shoot at, tryin’ to keep still just long enough so ol’ Sam wouldn’t spoil our aim. Mr. Giddings, he was right behind us, a Navy Colt in his right hand, kept lookin’ back at the saddlebags of money he was carryin’, sworn to protect. He’d look over my shoulder, then Bruce’s, all the while tryin’ to balance, to keep his feet in that cascadin’ stagecoach. A bullet splintered the wood not more’n an inch from my head, and I fell on my haunches, stunned, then scrambled back to my position and poked that ol’ Enfield out the window. Seen ’em chargin’, I did, through the thick dust Sam Golden was raisin’, ’bout five of ’em murderous savages, yippin’ like wolves, black hair blowin’ in the wind, faces all painted for war. That’ll put fear in your gut. Make a man swear off drinkin’ for a month of Sundays.
We was rollin’ somethin’ fast, but steady now, not bouncin’ so much, and I drawed me a bead on the nearest of ’em Cherry Cows. Had him dead center. Figgered on sendin’ him to that happy huntin’ ground.
“That’s right, Sam, just keep it steady,” I said, almost like I was prayin’…which maybe I was, I reckon…and right afore I pulled the trigger, we run over a rock ’bout the size of Denver City. My Enfield roared, but I knowed I’d missed. Knowed I hadn’t even scairt that Apache, and I was bouncin’ all the way to Bruce’s side of the Concord, cussin’ Sam Golden for all he was worth, half figgerin’ that the coach would turn over after a jolt like that, that the mules would break their traces and we’d crash.
“Sam, you fool! We can’t shoot nothin’ with you drivin’ like that!”
He didn’t answer. Bruce chanced a couple of shots from his Navies, then ducked. Mr. Giddings fired, too. That thick white smoke burned my eyes, which has always been prone to irritation with my condition, you see.
I cussed, took back my position, and drawed one of my Navy Thirty-Sixes. We hit another rock or hole or somethin’, and I jammed my hand against the door frame, like to have busted my wrist, come close to leavin’ that Navy in the dust for one of ’em chargin’ Injuns to pick up. I cussed Sam Golden again, cussed him loud and hard and proper. That’s when I realized I didn’t hear that poppin’ no more. Didn’t hear the Mex shootin’, neither. Didn’t hear nothin’ from up top. Smelt smoke is all, smoke and dust and the stink of our own sweat, ’cause we was sweatin’ heaps.
“Sam?” I hollered. “Sam Golden, you ain’t dead, are you?” When he didn’t reply, I called out the Mex’s name, and Mr. Giddings took up the query, too.
“Valdez? Golden? Answer us. Do you need assistance?”
The answer we got was another bone-bustin’ bump.
“Only assistance they need,” I said underneath my breath, “is a merciful Lord.”
Well, I shoved the Navy in my sash, and, riskin’ my head and hair, I stuck myself out of the window. Heard a bullet whistle by. Then an arrow thudded in the Concord door, slicin’ my britches, and blood trickled down my thigh. But I had me a good grip on the rail up above, and pulled myself up. Hat blowed off. Wonder it’d stayed on my head this long, and ’em Apaches went to whoopin’ and hollerin’ like happy devils when they seen my white locks. Figured that would make a mighty good trophy hangin’ from one of their acoustics. Then I grabbed another hold, pulled myself up higher, put my boots on the door.
When we bounced again, well, that was almost the death of Whitey Grey.
“Hang on!” Mr. Giddings called, but I didn’t need no encouragin’. With a final lunge, I was atop the Concord.
“Mister Grey?” I heard the boss man call out. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah!” I snapped. Dust and dirt stung my eyes, and I crawled and rolled, more like fell, off the top into the driver’s box.
“How are Valdez and Golden?”
“Dead!” I answered, leg startin’ to pain me, and tried to find the reins.
Only, they wasn’t there. No reins. No Mex. No Sam Golden.
The Mex and jehu, I figgered, had gotten ’emselves kilt, shot offen the coach. The reins was danglin’ down amongst the harnesses, traces, tree, and Overland road. Then I seen a big buck of a Cherry Cow, standin’ on a rock, ’bout to shoot me dead, but I whipped out one of my Navy Colts and blasted that cur. Saw the blood just a-spurtin’ from his breast as he flung back into the cactus.
Arrows and bullets was flyin’ ever’where, and ’em mules was runnin’ for their lives. Reckon they knowed that Apaches fancy mule meat. Sweeter it is than venison or beefsteak. Likes it my ownself. Me, I was tryin’ to figger out just how I could gets control of the team. Well, then I spotted the rock. Big one. Big! And I knowed we was all goners.
I was jumpin’ afore we hit, hopin’ that with luck I’d just break my neck and not get caught alive by ’em Cherry Cows. Landed hard, and heard the crashin’, the screamin’ of the mules, figgered Bruce and Mr. Giddings was dead, too. My lip was busted, had lost two good teeth, and I knowed my right ankle was broke, but I was still breathin’, and I rolled over, pulled myself to my feet, saw the Concord there on its side, the mules runnin’ down the cañon. I spat out blood, reached for one Navy, but I’d lost it in my tumble, so I jerked the other free, and limped toward the wagon. Those Apaches was right behind us. The door on the top flung open, knockin’ off a few arrows, and then I spied Mr. Giddings’s bell crown hat. He tossed up his saddlebags afore he crawled out atop. An arrow knocked off his hat, and he pivoted like a gunman and fired two quick shots.
Game as a bantam rooster, he was. He tossed off ’em there bags, and turned ’round, helpin’ Bruce out of the Concord.
Well, I run faster, fast as I could, ankle busted like it was, and my leg still bleedin’ and smartin’ from that arrow wound. Takin’ up me a position by the busted wagon tongue, I eyed the Apaches and shot one of the horses dead, spillin’ the rider. Hope that Cherry Cow busted his neck.
That took a little starch out of ’em Apaches. They figured this fight was all over, but we showed ’em we wasn’t quittin’. Couldn’t quit. Not amongst ’em red devils. Mr. Giddings hopped down beside me, carryin’ those heavy saddlebags on his shoulders, pistol in his right hand. He didn’t look too banged up considerin’ the spill he had taken in that coach. Should’ve broked his neck.
&n
bsp; But, Bruce, now, he didn’t fare so well. White bone was stickin’ out of his right forearm, and his face was covered with blood. Big gash on his forehead, nose smashed to a pulp. Didn’t have none of his guns, neither.
I figgered he wouldn’t be long for this world, but don’t reckon I guessed he’d die that quick. What happened was, afore I could say a thing or draw a breath, a Cherry Cow arrow pierced his throat, right underneath his Adam’s apple, from one side to the other. Just like that. We was just starin’ at each other, wonderin’ how we was still alive, and then that hired killer was gaggin’, chokin’ on his own blood, eyes bulgin’ out of their sockets, and afore it even struck us what had happened, he had sunk to his knees and leaned against the stagecoach and just up and died.
Mr. Giddings and I found us a better hidin’ spot, and then I spied my Enfield. Stock was busted, and it bein’ a singleshot, which I had done fired, it wasn’t good for a fightin’ weapon no more, but I sure needed some help walkin’, so I picked it up to use as a crutch.
“We’re dead. There’s no escape, no hope, but we cannot let this gold fall into the Apaches’ hands,” Mr. Giddings said.
“Hold on there!” I called out, but Mr. Giddings just took off runnin’ toward the rocks, the weight of that gold slowin’ him down, causin’ him to stagger and weave. “Come back here, you fool!” Bullets kicked up dust at his feet, but he made it to the cañon’s edge, disappearin’ in the rocks. I spotted black hair and a blue headband just above where he had vanished, knowed it was an Apache, and fired two shots with my Navy.
Now, I couldn’t keep up with Mr. Giddings, not with my ankle busted, and I reckon I had me as good a spot to die as any right there by the stage. Had water, a little food, another cylinder, capped and loaded, for my Thirty-Six in my possibles bag, and my fallen comrade, ol’ Bruce from Wisconsin way, for comp’ny. I looked at the sun, then toward where I had last seen Mr. Giddings, and, with a sigh, I just leaned against the coach and sank down to a seated position, proppin’ up the busted Enfield beside me.
The wheel was spinnin’ overhead, squeakin’, and afore too many seconds had passed, I realized that was the only sound I heard. Nothin’. Deadly quiet. I spat out some more salty blood, checked my Navy Colt, wondered if I should just kill myself now and be done with it. No use in waitin’ for the Apaches to attack, ’cause they would, soon enough.
It’s funny what’ll go through a man’s mind when he’s that close to dyin’. Well, no point in gettin’ to all that, now. So there I sat, waitin’ to die, figgered Mr. Giddings was dead by now, and next thing I knowed, I seen him. His head popped up from the rocks, next his whole body, ’em saddlebags gone, but the six-shooter still in his hand. First, I taken it for a mirage, maybe some apparition, but I never heard of no mirage talkin’.
“Mister Grey?” he yelled.
Well, I was just too stunned to answer. I lifted my Colt a wee bit, tried to wave him back, but he must have figured I was bad hurt, so, brave man that he was, he come chargin’ back. I won’t forget that. Won’t forget what a gallant man he was.
Fool, though. Just a fool thing to do. Should have stayed in the rocks. Might have made it out of that scrap alive, but he was comin’ toward me. Comin’ to save me.
The first arrow hit him in the back of his left leg, right in the bend of the knee, and he fell. He was rollin’ over when a bullet shattered his left arm. I saw the Apache, the one I had seen afore and shot at, rise up, an old Sharps in his hands, grinnin’ like he’d just drawed to an inside straight, and started to fire that big ol’ buffalo gun, but Mr. Giddings beat me and him to it. He put two bullets in that Cherry Cow’s belly afore that Injun knowed what had happened.
Well, I was thinkin’, he took one of ’em vermin with ’im.
But that was it. Arrows flied out from all over like a covey of quail, pinnin’ Mr. Giddings to the ground.
I just sank back down, almost cried, I did, but then I shook some sense into me. Scairt as I was, bad hurt as I was, I wasn’t ’bout to shame Mr. John James Giddings’s memory by bawlin’ like some yellow-livered coward. No, sir. I could die as game as he could.
So I cocked that Navy of mine, and waited for ’em Apaches to come finish the job.
Chapter Four
“So, how’d you get away?”
The question escaped my mouth before I realized I had even spoken. I’d even beaten Ian Spencer Henry to it, and I rarely got a word in edgewise with my best friend nearby.
“Directly, sonny, directly,” the white-faced man answered without looking at me. He belched, a foul, bean-smelling burp that stunk up the mine’s entrance more than when he broke wind earlier. Next, Whitey Grey fished out paper and tobacco sack and began rolling a cigarette, but his makings were so old and dry, his first two attempts fell into ruin, while Jasmine, Ian Spencer Henry, and I waited eagerly, anxiously, wondering if he would ever finish his blood-and-thunder story.
At last, the third cigarette survived the ordeal, and he stuck the smoke in his mouth, then patted down his pockets for a Lucifer. To our relief, the cigarette flared up much quicker than it had taken him to roll it, and he leaned back, pulling hard, savoring the taste and smell of tobacco—personally, I preferred the sulphuric aroma of the stricken match over that of cigarette smoke.
There we sat, as if in some trance.
“Night come on me,” he said at last, only, just as soon as he had resurrected his story, he departed on yet another detour. “Young ’uns, you sure you ain’t gots no whiskey on you or gots a bottle hidden somewhere close by? ’Tain’t nothin’ like a mornin’ bracer on top of Caroliny-cured tobaccy.”
“We don’t have anything,” Ian Spencer Henry said, “but there are eleven dram shops and dance halls on Avon Avenue alone, Mister Grey.” My friend smiled in a triumphant brag. “I’ve counted them.”
Whitey Grey nodded without much appreciation. “Well, don’t matter none. Where was I again, chil’ren?”
This time, Jasmine spoke first, reminding this stranger of where he had left off, and he repeated that darkness had fallen on him at Doubtful Cañon on that April day two decades earlier.
“Apaches be scairt of the dark,” he said. “Y’all ain’t afeared of no hobgoblins or haunts in the night, is you?”
Shakes of our heads reassured him, or, maybe, tried to convince us of our own bravery.
“Good, good. But ’em Cherry Cows won’t never attack after dark. Odd creatures, ’em Apache. Fearless in the daylight, but, oncet that sun sets, they ain’t prone to fightin’. Scairt if they gets kilt, they’ll never find their way to the happy land, or if they kill someone, maybe that dead fella’s ghost won’t be able to find his way to the happy land and will follow his slayer for the rest of his days. Or somethin’ like that. I ain’t claimin’ to know all there is to know about no Apache. No, sir. They be hard to savvy. Most Injuns is that way. But, point is, Cherry Cows just won’t keep up no attack come dark.”
When he paused his story for another drag on his smoke, I took advantage of the opening to ask a question that had plagued me since his story began. “Apaches don’t take scalps, either,” I informed Whitey Grey. “But you kept saying they’d lift your hair…things like that. Could you explain?”
Whitey Grey’s cold, dead eyes flamed with anger as he flicked the cigarette into dark corner.
“You callin’ me a liar, boy?”
“No, sir….” A dread filled my stomach, and I felt sick, maybe scared, and a sharp pain suddenly raced up my leg and down my foot. Ian Spencer Henry had paid me back, had kicked me in the ankle for talking too much.
My friend gave me his own angry stare, but, when I looked back toward Whitey Grey, I saw the full extent of the albino’s rage, reflecting in those hollow eyes. Chilled? Petrified? I’m not sure I have a word in my vocabulary that will do justice to the fear I felt at that moment. I can’t say my young life passed before my eyes, as that tired saying goes, but I did find myself choking down fright, or, at least, trying to. The dread ke
pt rising till I could almost taste it, and then Whitey Grey broke out in a roar of laughter that echoed into the nethermost, midnight-black depths of the Lady Macbeth Mine until it sounded as if a chorus of demons were laughing with him.
He reached over and patted my trembling knee with a hard, calloused hand, then gave my two friends reassuring pats.
“You got a curious, suspicious mind, don’t you…what’s that you say your name is?”
“Jack,” I answered. “Jack Dunivan.”
“Yeah, yeah, Jack Dunivan. That’s right. Jack Dunivan, Ian Spencer Henry, and Jasmine Allison. My pardners.” At that instant, he slammed his palms together in a thunderous clap. Whitey Grey grinned. “Bully for you, Master Jack Dunivan, ’cause this old hoss here, Whitey Grey, he likes a curious, suspicious man for his pardner. ’Specially if he’s gotta trust that pardner in as treacherous a place as ’em Peloncillo Mountains. That’s because ’em Cherry Cows may be cooped up on the San Carlos Reservation over in Arizony now, but, well, that desert country that I be bound for is knowed for bein’ filled with other right mean folk. Mexican bandits. White men like ’em Clantons from Tombstone way. Rustlers, thieves, bushwhackers, and murderers. A fellow had better have a suspicious nature iffen he wants to live long in that country.” With another smile, he patted Jasmine’s leg. “A girlie fellow had better be suspicious, too.”
“I am,” she reassured him. “And Jack’s right. Apaches don’t scalp. Papa told me….” Her eyes fell down, and she pulled up her legs, wrapping her arms tightly around the knees, and closed her eyes, remembering, I guess, or maybe trying to forget.
“How long you kids been in Shakespeare?” he asked.
We answered meekly, all except Jasmine, who kept silent, her eyes shut tightly, rocking back and forth and biting her upper lip.
Doubtful Canon Page 3
